Strangelove camera plane

[Mark Sublette]

It has been reported in several locations that the B-17G that was used in filming the arctic flight scenes for the Stanley Kubrick film "Dr. Strangelove : Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" was 44-83563. However, this is wrong. The Special Edition DVD of the movie includes a documentary about the filming process and I was surprised to see that home movie footage included reveals the actual camera ship to have been the French IGN aerial survey Fortress F-BEEA! The full registration of the bomber is clearly shown and it is NOT 44-83563...

[aerovin2]

Well I just hate it when the facts ruin a good story. This is the first I have heard of this report. The peculiar thing is that Martin Caidin first reported that N9563Z was used for Strangelove in his book "Flying Forts" and the timeframe makes sense. Columbia owned the airplane at the time Strangelove was made, but I'll have to concede the point based upon the information you provided and that of one other source. Very peculiar. Thanks for posting the information.

[Mark Sublette]

I am not entirely surprised to discover that Martin Caiden's report of the Fort that flew the Strangelove missions was incorrect. As much as I loved the accounts he told in "Everything But the Flak" which I read as a junior high school student, with the benefit of adult experiences, I now believe that he was prone to exageration of his "war stories" and that some of his account, especially his version of the flight crews' interaction with Interpol in Portugal may have elements of a "tall tale". Caiden may have been one of those writers who didn't let facts get in the way of a good story!

Nonetheless, the pictures in the documentary don't lie, and the actual B-17 was definitely F-BEEA, 44-85643.

[aerovin2]

Yes, I concur with your appraisal of Mr. Caidin's accounts. However, I thought his identification of the airplane used in Strangelove would be accurate especially given the studio connection and time frame. However, I should consider it lessons that 1) Never trust anything Caidin wrote as accurate and 2) just because something is written and rewritten over and over, it doesn't make it true. I thought I'd already learned that lesson but I get to learn it again.

Thanks again for correcting the error.

[DIK SHEPHERD]

Your comment "just because something is written and rewritten over and over, it doesn't make it true" is so true in almost every book on the B-17. I tried to prove this point in articles I did in Air Classics several years ago.
For instance, the reason for the crash of the prototype Model 299 was not locked flight controls, but the shutdown of numbers 1 and 2 engines shortly after takeoff.
Also, the old story of the Y1B-17 flying into a thunderstorm and being thrown around thus negating the need for the fourteenth airframe being used for stress destruction and made into the Y1B-17A is a crock. This story also always gives the wrong aircraft.